​On October 15, the National Energy Administration has made the information regarding the residential photovoltaic projects public. The installed capacity was 920.27MW in September. The residential installed capacity has reached 4277.36MW by the end of September.

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According to the data tracking of the residential PV data tracking in China carried out by EnergyTrend, the renewable energy research center of TrendForce, the capacity of the residential PV power stations included in the national subsidies in 2019H1 was 2.22GW. In the third quarter, the capacity of the residential projects included the national subsidy reached 2064.03MW. The installed capacity of residential projects exceeded the originally planned 3.5GW. It is expected that 4.5~5.0GW could be reached by the grid connection deadline on October 31 in the second half of the year. China's PV installed capacity is expected to reach 22.6GW in 2019H1, provided that PV Poverty Alleviation Program, zero-subsidy, and auction projects are included.

China's residential PV development trends in 2019Q3 (Unit MW):

Concerning solar power by regions, the top seven provinces accounted for 87.15% of the total projects included in the national subsidy in the third quarter. The combined capacity of the residential projects from the top three provinces, Shandong, Henan, and Hebei, has exceeded 200 MW, accounting for 70.4% of all the nationally subsidized residential projects in the third quarter. Compared with the residential grid-connected projects included in the national subsidies before 2019Q3, the combined capacity of the top four provinces of Hebei, Zhejiang, Shandong, and Henan has exceeded 100MW in the 3rd quarter. While the nationally subsidized projects in Shandong and Henan are increased, those in Guangdong are decreased in 2019Q3.

By the end of September 2019, the scale of residential projects in the provinces that were included in the national subsidies (Unit: MW):Note: Tibet is not included in the residential photovoltaic projects with financial subsidies in 2019. Therefore no figure is submitted.

The residential PV projects included in the national subsidies in the third quarter: the top 10 provinces. (Unit: MW)Note: The information concerning the capacity of grid-connected residential PV projects in Shanxi, Jilin, Zhejiang, and Jiangxi provinces have been revised on the basis of the actual data. The data regarding the new projects of these four provinces in July may contain aberrations.

The rush of installation is expected to exceed the budget by 250 million RMBThe amount of subsidies for residential solar this year is 750 million yuan, which also included the power station subsidies designated for the installed capacity of 3.5 GW. The power stations that have been connected to the grid exceeds 3.5GW (4.28GW to be exact) at the time of writing. It has been clarified in the public notice issued by National Energy Administration on May 28, 2019, which details that the power stations connected to the grid during the buffer period are eligible for subsidies. Will these additional power stations in 2019 be included in the next round of subsidies? It depends on the subsequent clarifications of the policy to determine exactly how to proceed.

It is understood that the government bodies are speeding up the research concerning the policy of solar power generation subsidy in 2020. One of the important parts is to examine the subsidy quota, subsidy intensity, and the grid-connected capacity of the residential photovoltaics which is included in the national subsidies.

Additionally, since the subsidy for residential solar stands at 0.18 RMB/ kWh in 2019. After a rough calculation is attempted, the amount of the residential solar subsidy can allegedly cover the subsidy gap of the residential projects of about 4.17 GW. Approximately 100 MW of residential projects need the government bodies to make the payments for the exceeded amount up until the time of writing.

China National Renewable Energy Centre estimated that the grid-connected capacity of the residential photovoltaics which is within the scope of the 2019 national subsidy will reach 5GW by the end of October. The total amount of subsidies may reach about 900 million RMB, which basically matches the subsidy amount of 750 million RMB planned early this year.